


In Which I'm Lain Entwined

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Community: fandomaid, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-23
Updated: 2011-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tersa has walked in the Twisted Kingdom for many long years. It's hard to return from the Twisted Kingdom. Hard, but not impossible. But it can't be done alone. Written for redcandle17 as a Fandom Aid auction for the 2011 Queensland floods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1 / Kaeleer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



> The Black Jewels characters belong to Anne Bishop. The title is from 'Vox' by Sarah McLachlan.

The boy who is no longer a boy comes regularly, although Tersa sees in his eyes and senses in his bearing that he wishes to be elsewhere. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see her and spend time with her; she can feel that like a soft reassuring arm around her even when one isn’t there. It’s just that he carries so much responsibility on his shoulders all the time, and she wishes that she could lift it away from him.

Instead she gives him nutcakes and milk and sometimes she knows he’s too old for milk but even then she pretends she doesn’t, for all of the times that she won’t know she’s not pretending.

Witch who is no longer Witch comes with him sometimes, and in her eyes Tersa sees echoes of Witch-who-was and reflections of herself, but mostly this new, quieter woman who is still as vocal as ever but keeps her power to a low whisper, unless there is a great need. The loudest thing about her now is love.

The winged boy comes just as regularly, although they never come together, and sometimes he brings his wife and his son and Tersa watches them and thinks that it must be nice to have that connection with each other. She needn’t worry about the fourth side of the triangle, not here: they were one and one who added to make three in the simplest and oldest of ways.

Sometimes she wonders how it would be to have all that: power and family and connections and reality. She doesn’t regret it or miss it because she doesn’t _know_ it; she just wonders, in the same way a boy might wonder what is going on behind his mother’s eyes at those times when she gazes off into space and doesn’t quite see him in front of her.

The boy who is not her boy comes a lot because his mother thinks it is good for Tersa to have that regular touchstone with the real world. Tersa thinks, in her more lucid moments, that considering what the real world did it can perish in flames for all she cares, but she does care for the boy ( _boys_ ) and doesn’t mention the flames notion to Witch-who-was because although she’s mostly sure that Witch-who-was wouldn’t ( _couldn’t_ ) wreak that kind of destruction now, mostly sure is not the same as all the way sure, and neither kind of sure is ever enough with the woman who stopped the sun from rising.

Besides, she never sees with perfect clarity to be all the way certain anyway.

And then sometimes there’s the man. The father. The one who might have been the third part of her own family triangle with the boy who is no longer a boy. Why not? He was good to her, and kind, and didn’t break her.

Sometimes she wonders how it would have been had she not been broken, but those thoughts cut her and she can’t touch them for long, lest she bleed.


	2. 2 / The Twisted Kingdom

When she looks at webs that are tangled in reality they’re even more convoluted here. She can pluck a thread on one side and see something thrum that’s completely unconnected over on the other side. Colours that don’t exist shimmer through the weave. Sometimes she gets too entranced by them and Allista has trouble getting her to wake from the dream.

But when the dream is her life and her life is the dream, it’s hard to say what’s real and what’s not.

Since the Langston man used her powers to harm people, the colours have grown brighter. Stronger. The threads that she touches vibrate the threads beside them more often than they used to. They fit together more logically, like the pattern of the days in the real world, the pattern that Allista tries so valiantly to reinforce with mealtimes and bedtimes.

She hates what she did for the Langston man because he twisted and snarled it. But she’s finding that if she focuses on thread-thoughts the way she did to make her surprises, she can weave them the way that she wants, and make patterns that real black widow spiders would never make.

‘Tersa.’

She plucks a thread, feels it hum.

‘ _Tersa_.’

She can feel Allista’s hand on her shoulder, a thick-spun anchor line.

‘Tersa, it’s time to eat.’

Tersa opens her eyes. ‘All right.’

She knows that Witch who is no longer Witch brought her back as far as possible.

How much more of the journey can she make unaided?


	3. 3 / The Keep

Saetan’s attempting to relax for once, but it’s flat-out impossible with all his varied children in the house. Even shutting himself into his study doesn’t work, because Ladvarian has picked up the ability to whine over a psychic thread, and if Jaenelle taught him that then he’s going to -- going to -- well, he’s not actually going to do _anything_ , but he might manage to look cross at her.

He finally opens the door after five solid minutes of whining and looks the Sceltie in the eye, not because he’s looking down but because Ladvarian is air walking. Or rather, air pacing, back and forth in front of the door.

*Please tell me nobody has blown anything up.*

*You would have heard that,* Ladvarian points out.

This is true. *Then what is it?*

*Jaenelle and Daemon and Lucivar want to talk to you.*

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. *All three of them?*

*All three of them.* Ladvarian drops a little lower and snags Saetan’s sleeve with his sharp little teeth. *Come on.*

*Why did they send you?*

*None of them wanted to come alone*

No. Of course not. That would break their united front.

Saetan hasn’t been this scared in years. For that matter, he doesn’t think he’s _ever_ been this scared.

* * *

The three of them are sitting in a line on a couch in one of the more formal receiving rooms. Ladvarian lets go of his sleeve outside the doorway and hightails it for safer ground, which is possibly nonexistent if the three of them have got something serious planned.

‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Another landen idiot’s decided he’s secretly Blood and is trying to write books about us? No, wait, you want to open up Hell as a really, _really_ big spooky house. Or are you going to ask me to ask Mrs Beale to vacate the kitchen so that you can use it to brew potions? Because there’s no way I’m doing _that_.’ He stops in front of them, hands planted on his hips.

They exchange a glance all at once, which he would have sworn was impossible.

‘No-oo,’ Jaenelle says slowly, although now it looks like she’s contemplating at least one of those options as a possibility, which only makes him even more worried. ‘We just wanted to talk to you about Tersa.’

‘ _Tersa_?’

‘That’s right,’ Daemon says. ‘Jaenelle and I visit her regularly.’

‘So do Marian and I.’ Lucivar flexes his wings. ‘And Daemonar.’

‘And...’

‘And the last three or four times any of us has seen her, she’s asked if you were coming to visit any time soon.’ Daemon gives him an odd smile. ‘She misses you.’

‘She says you’re good company,’ Lucivar puts in.

‘Not to mention that she’s Daemon’s mother, and family ties are important.’ Jaenelle touches Daemon’s cheek. ‘We learned that much from the spooky house. The _other_ spooky house.’

‘Allista always says how important it is for Tersa to keep to a routine and, since you visit her sometimes, maybe you should consider making it a regular visit,’ Daemon concludes.

Mother _Night_. It’s worse than anything he’d contemplated: the three of them are trying to _matchmake_.


	4. 4 / Kaeleer

Tersa sits in the garden, letting fresh-turned earth spill through her fingers as she watches one of her small arachnid namesakes busily weave a web between two twigs of a low-hanging branch. Black widow spiders weave tangled webs, their sole goal to capture and eat prey. They’re not pretty, but functional. Being a Black Widow is not about the bright hourglass, but about the poison.

‘Tersa? Where are you? You have a visitor.’

She hastily counts on her fingers; it’s not the right day for either of the older boys to come and although the young boy comes and goes more randomly, Allista doesn’t call her for that; she just lets Mikal come and find her, trusting him not to startle her if she’s wandering her mind’s pathways.

‘Tersa!’

She wishes she could cling to other names as well as she can cling to her own. It’s another of her strong anchor threads.

She’s never forgotten the name of the man who comes around the corner of the house, ushered by Allista, who spots her under the tree and waves for him to go to her before disappearing back inside.

‘Saetan,’ she says, moving to stand up, but he gestures for her to stay on the grass and settles beside her, looking a little out of place in his black trousers and shirt that are like a second shadow cast by the tree.

‘You remembered my name.’ He sounds pleased.

‘I always remember your name. Even if I don’t use it.’

His arm slips around her shoulders. He apparently remembers that sometimes she misses being held. She leans against him, closing her eyes, seeing the tangled web of her little eight-legged sister in her mind’s eye. Pluck any one of those threads and the whole web would vibrate and get the spider’s attention. She feels like that at the moment, like his arm around her has caught on one of her threads and her whole body’s humming in response.

‘I’ve been informed that I should visit you more often.’

Tersa opens her eyes again and looks sidelong at him. ‘Are you here just because they told you to come?’

‘No,’ Saetan says so quickly that she knows it for the truth. ‘No.’

It’s cool here under the tree, and shady, and yet she feels warmth spread through her as though she were lying out in the sunshine.

‘Allista says you’re more... yourself lately.’

‘Allista has no idea who I am,’ Tersa says simply.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘No two paths in the Twisted Kingdom are alike, and she’s never walked there herself.’ Her tone sharpens; she can feel it in her throat. ‘Although if she keeps pushing herself to understand me, it may yet happen.’

‘I didn’t think she was doing that. I thought she was just here to help you.’

‘Help, help, help. Mealtimes and bedtimes and visiting times.’ Tersa shakes her head and it temporarily disrupts the threads she’s trying so hard to hold together. ‘I...’ Her voice trails off.


	5. 5 / The Twisted Kingdom

The Arachnian Queen is a golden weaver. Their common kin don’t weave tangled webs, but rather beautiful ornate spirals that take patience and time to complete. When viewed on the right angle or in the right light, the threads appear golden, giving them their name.

Tersa’s watching the colours of the threads that she’s trying to hold together. They’re shifting-changing-blurring, from not-colours to silk-colours, unreal colours to real colours.

She fought so hard to keep her powers, and paid the price. Since then she’s always feared a return to reality, because what if it means losing her powers? She would be nothing. She would still be cared for, but she’s held on too long to let go.

But maybe she doesn’t need to let go altogether. Maybe she just needs to weave a different pattern.

The threads flash to gold, and it’s the colour of his eyes.


	6. 6 / Kaeleer

She’d been so lucid for so long and then just blanked out, her fingers twitching in her lap, and Saetan doesn’t know what to do except to hold her closer, as though keeping her physical body grounded has anything to do with where her mind is roaming.

He presses his lips to her temple after a few minutes of listening to her mumble incoherently, her fingers still making those eerie little movements as though she’s braiding an invisible child’s hair or something, and whispers, ‘Tersa?’

Her head snaps around and they’re eye to eye, nose to nose, inhale to exhale.

‘Gold, not black,’ she says. ‘Spirals, not tangles.’

Saetan says the only thing he can reasonably say under the circumstances, which is, ‘Pardon?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘I’m _trying_ to,’ Saetan says with a petulance in his voice that embarrasses him, that he thinks he might have picked up from Jaenelle.

Tersa’s thin arms go around his waist; he lifts his other arm and puts it around her as well. Her breathing quickens and he sees a strange light, an _aware_ light, in her eyes.

‘So am I,’ she says, and kisses him.


End file.
